You see I have for a little while, been collecting blue armour pieces for my RP, not for now, but for when I get into the low RR80’s. It was just something I was doing in preparation, having put no real thought into it, just your basic bit of hoarding. However a comment I made on a blog post by Bootae, spurred me into giving it all a bit more consideration. Apart from the set bonuses why would you be hanging onto your sovereign armour, beyond RR85. Maybe there would be a few pieces you’d keep, but really? Maybe your sovereign has some sentimental value, but stat wise I’m not sure it worth the effort.
Lets compare the helm & glove of this rune priest sovereign armour, against just a couple of pieces of blue sub RR85 armour. Now these blues aren’t anything special, just what’s dropped into my lap.
If you take the helm RR83, it’s got 30% more stats (I ignored the +20HP) and a 19% increase in armour, whilst the gloves, which are RR84 provide a 41% increase in stats (Included fortitude) with 20% armour boost.
So if we were to take that across the board, you’re going to be packing a lot more under the bonnet. If your stat values are capping out, then you’ll be able to invest in some % crits or whatever.
Like I said earlier, I hadn’t appreciated the uplift these blues would give, until I actually sat down and did the numbers. As someone more insightful than me said, it’s just like WoW, out with the old and in with the blue.
Of course as Bootae and others have pointed out, it doesn’t address the older armour sets, but I suppose it does give you a small crumb of comfort, if you’ve prepared yourself in advance.
I’m sure some will be going, doh, we knew that, but I always was the slow one in the class, but I just thought it was worth mentioning.
I don’t know much about Sov for other careers, but from what I remember from my guildies, most were still planning on wearing full Sov in warband play past RR90. But that was before the exodus so we don’t worry that much about wb play now (there aren’t many guilds that can regularly field a wb these days anyway).
The thing is that 8 piece bonuses are too useful not to have. Tank defensive Sovereign is group-wide Resolute Defense on a 3 min cd, very handy. Healer bonus is crit immunity for 10 seconds, and by my experience it’s comparable to tank morale 4 that cuts damage by 75%, at least that’s how easy it is to heal when it’s up. Melee dps offensive 8 piece bonus is a complete morale drain, which is necessary to have in warband play these days because of the combat bug.
Furthermore, Sovereign for WPs and DoKs has a hefty RF/SE regeneration bonus on it, that boosts the amount of healing they can put out considerably.
Since neither Doomflayer or Warpforged have those bonuses I can’t see myself using them any time soon on my WP (nevermind the fact that I’m not likely to get to RR90 anytime soon).
Maybe from my point of view, where I am solo alot, I can ignore these bonus’s and focus on the survivability.
I was expecting to be switching to blue weapons at 83 but when I did the maths on them, I found the increase in weapon DPS above the 81 scenario weapons barely compensated for the reduced stat bonus, and considering the lack of any crit, I’ve stuck with duel virtue weapons for the time being.
As for the rest of it, I probably need to sit down and do some calculations like you have, but I suspect the procs on 6+7 piece would keep sovereign on top (thankfully as a RPDP I find no need to run 8-piece combos and can keep the Glyph set bonus intact).
In my own experience from the other side of the coin (Zealot), I have to say I’m sticking with Sov, and probably will up into Doomflayer.
Ther 7-pc proc (AP regen) is simply too powerful as a healer. Until I have the pure heal output of Doomflayer due to the bonuses, the ability to cast infinitely far outweighs a little extra survivability or whatnot.
Where you would absolutley pick up a solid amount of survivability, you would be sacrificing to the OPness that the Sov set provides to any healer, and that’s 2 fold:
Massive Heal Crit.
And the AP proc on Heal. With a RP, you’ll be seeing this every 3 seconds.
So you would have 2 sides. Either have endless AP and massive heals, or pickup a great deal more survivability. As a RP, I would think the first choice with Sov will be the winner.
I only saw a couple of DOKs running the blue RR84 setups. Maybe it was just the players, but I wasn’t impressed. For my guildies that are still pushing the RR90 label, they are still going full Sov in their push there. I think with the new set bonuses, its just too hard to ignore.
Mmmm, I take on board what you are saying, but if I’m dead I can’t heal. Since I solo a lot, then it’s my survival rate that’s suffering atm.
Tbh I will have both available, so I will be able to do a compare and contrast.
What I didn’t factor into, which I should have done, is the +85 willpower/wounds, which would have reduced the % difference.
By the way, what is the exact definition of Fortitude?
Doomflayer and Warpforged do have stat bonuses if that’s what you mean. They’re already calculated into the individual pieces.
Afaik fortitude acts exactly like toughness, only that it doesn’t have a softcap.
No, what I mean is, I didn’t include the stat bonus’s when looking at the sovereign, if you were wearing 3/4 pieces.
No no no. Fortitude is just a new Toughness. Since Fortitude is a new ability, no class can mitigate it.
Since there seems to be very few DPS classes that don’t have a Toughness reduction ability near 100+, Fortitude is the next big deal for 90+.
what is the softcap on stats 1050?
Something like that, but I am sure I saw a comment saying you should be aiming for 1500 on primary ones once into the 80’s.
Yes it scales depending on your RR, I believe the +1 level renown ranks are 84, 88, 92, 96, 100. I think each of those raises the softcap (or it might be each RR), with it being roughly 1500 at RR100.
I believe it’s each RR, I am currently 83 and my willpower is over 1050 yet still green. Yes I run the “squishy healbot” build. Sh.